Pentagon: Oops, We Sent Live Anthrax Samples to 51 Labs by Accident

Last week, the Pentagon sheepishly announced that they’d accidentally sent live anthrax spores to laboratories in nine states. Days later, they inflated that number to 24 labs in eleven states and two other countries. Today, that number has doubled, and we’re all like “whattttttt.”

The latest numbers, via the Los Angeles Times: 51 labs, in 24 states and three countries, received unsecured, live samples of anthrax, forcing at least 31 people to be treated for anthrax exposure. So far, none have been infected from this massive clusterfuck.

The anthrax samples, which were supposed to be irradiated and inactive, were mistakenly sent to a number of academic, commercial, and government labs that assisted the U.S. government in studying biological weapons defenses. (Many will remember the anthrax letters of 2001, sent shortly after 9/11 to government agencies and media organizations, which ended up killing five people.)

Officials from the Pentagon and the Centers for Disease Control told the media that they would continue the investigation into how they’d lapsed in shipping live anthrax, and whether they needed to improve security at their labs.

(Great footnote: The samples were sent via FedEx. So far, the government hasn’t indicated that this is a threat, and FedEx has a robust clinical shipping program. But…yeah.)

[Image via Shutterstock]

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